Friday, April 09, 2004

This environmental organization is calling for a worldwide moratorium on commercial production of nanomaterials until their environmental impact can be studied.

The group states: "These concerns were first made public when the on-line journal, Small Times, reported on a March meeting called "Nanotechnology: Environmental Friend or Foe?" that was held at EPA headquarters in Washington, DC. ..." They cite Small Times articles heavily in this report.

They're an activist environmental group, as opposed to an objective organization, with apparently some influence in European environmental policy (correspondent Doug Brown is working on a story). We'll probably hear more about this issue in the future.

Apparently, Small Times is helping to stir up the pot a little bit and get people on all sides of an issue talking about the positives and potential negatives of the industry -- an important part of our mission, I think.

Within all of these categories, individual stories are going to break during the next year. I'd like to use the news section of the magazine to get ahead of these trends. I don't want to wait for news to happens and react to these events.

… The business angle? Well, how nanotech is perceived by the public has an inherent business angle …